Category Archives: Current Issues in the Church
Current Issues in the Church
There is so much Catholic information and commentary available now that the hard part is choosing what issues are most important enough to follow. Our website limits its coverage to those current events that touch on our doctrinal and missionary purposes. Issues involving our apostolate get top priority, but other issues affecting all of our lives are also highlighted in our news reports and columns.
A knowledge of Church history will give us the tools necessary to deal with many of the alarming current issues that threaten the Faith and the Church, theologically, morally, and socially.
Brother Francis has a tremendous appreciation for the history of the Church. He liked to call Church history “the laboratory of wisdom.” Why? Because the history of the Church is the history of human salvation, and choosing the best means to save one’s soul is the highest prudence. And prudence, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is wisdom in action.
A knowledge of Church history is essential if we are to apply the wisdom of the past, and the tragic errors of the past, to current issues and events in the Church. History is the laboratory of wisdom, but the application today of the lessons learned from history is prudence.
How, for example, are we to understand what St. Pius X meant when he said that “modernism is the synthesis of all heresies,” if we are ignorant of the history of the Church’s battles against heresy? How are we to evaluate the causes of what Pope Benedict referred to a “crisis of Faith,” if we unfamiliar with any of the twenty ecumenical councils that preceded Vatican II?
Christendom is gone as a reflection of the social reign of Christ the King, but Catholicism lives on, and the spiritual warfare is ever-present. We must keep informed, rejoicing in the good, and fighting against what is evil.
A Tragic Day for the Boy Scouts
It is a crime against boyhood, manhood, and the honor of a once noble institution. More seriously, it is an obscene gesture sent Heavenward. Homosexual youth will be admitted to the BSA starting January 1 of 2014. The sodomite camel’s nose is now under the Scouts’ tent, and the unholy cause will continue to go from strength to strength as the rest of its malign … More →
China: Government Tightens Grip on Election and Ordination of Bishops
AsiaNews: Church observers in China have reacted strongly to a revision of the regulations surrounding the election of bishops, which they say grants the government-backed Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC) overarching control. More on this here.
Everything Old Is New Again
The past five decades have seen religious life in the Catholic Church go into two very different directions. On the one hand, in the wake of Vatican II, many orders – especially of women – jettisoned their unique habits and rules (and in the case of the Dominicans and Carmelites, their liturgical rites). This revolutionary era was immediately followed by an enormous drop off in … More →
Pope Denounces ‘Poverty as an Ideology’
Speaking of Judas’ words on St. Mary Magdalene’s “waste” of spikenard, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, said: “This is the first reference that I personally found in the Gospel of poverty as an ideology. The ideologue does not know what love is because they do not know how to gift themselves.” This passage from the Gospels is a great apologetic for lavishing valuable things on … More →
Saudi Court Sentences Christian to 6 Years & 300 Lashes for Making Convert
AsiaNews: A court in Al-Khobar, Saudi city east of the Gulf, has sentenced a Lebanese Christian to prison and flogging for having converted a young Saudi man to Christianity and helped a young woman escape from the country. The first considered the organizer of the operation, was sentenced to six years in prison and 300 lashes. The Saudi was charged as an accomplice to two years … More →
Boston College Trounced for Honoring Pro-Abort, Anti-Catholic Irish PM
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today condemned Jesuit administered Boston College for selecting Republic of Ireland Taoiseach Enda Kenny as its 2013 Commencement Speaker. The university will also confer an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Kenny during commencement exercises on May 20th. On April 30th, Kenny’s coalition government introduced legislation with the Orwellian title “The Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013,” which … More →
Newsflash: the Pope is Catholic
Some of the things that Michael Voris points out in this episode of the Vortex have been previously noted on Catholicism.org (here, for instance). It’s worth seeing them all in one place. In brief, Pope Francis is not the pope the liberals modernists and progressivists really want.
Diocese of Columbus Bullied by Anonymous / ‘LGBT’ Community
This — in the videos, below — is what you’re up against if you wish to maintain just a modicum of Christian standards in a Catholic institution. The Diocese of Columbus, which let a teacher go for living in an openly homosexual relationship is now undergoing threats and intimidation from Anonymous. Go here for news stories on the case.
Israel Court Allows for Seizure of Convents Land and Property of 50 Palestinian Families
Catholic Culture: An Israeli court has affirmed the government’s decision to confiscate most of the land owned by a Salesian convent as the Israeli West Bank barrier through the Cremisan Valley, which is located near Bethlehem, is rerouted. Read here and earlier report here.
Posted in News, Persecution of the Church 3 Comments
Don’t Smoke the Tea Leaves!
Father Michael P. Orsi has written an article for Catholic Exchange titled, “Reading the Tea Leaves: Will Pope Francis End Priestly Celibacy?” After correctly saying that there cannot be female priests, and after a bit of speculation on the possibility of married priests for the western Church, Father concludes — not, apparently, happily — that there will be recognition of female deacons: So, how will … More →
Priest Advises Christians to Leave Syria, But He’ll Stay
Catholic Culture: Following the kidnapping and (reported) release of two Orthodox prelates, a parish priest in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, discussed his ministry there. “Car bombs have been found near churches,” said the anonymous priest. “Divine Providence has permitted our fellow citizens to notice the danger and so the bombs were disabled before their explosion.” More here.
Reacting to Pope Francis
I am a convert. If I wanted to be my own Pope, I’d have stayed Protestant. That is to say, I accept that it is the exclusive right of the Church headed by the Pope, not mine as an individual, to decide what is authentic Christian belief and practice. She teaches, I can only repeat the teaching (and try to live by it). One of … More →
Pope Francis: ‘You Cannot Find Jesus Outside the Church’
CNA: “Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these (the apostles) belonged to the Church, the Mother Church, because finding Jesus outside the Church is impossible,” he said. Read more here.
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Pope Francis: ‘It Is Not Possible to Find Jesus outside the Church’
From Pope Francis’ sermon today, the feast of Saint George (Jorge Bergoglio’s own patron): “But the Christian identity is not an identity card: Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these belonged to the Church, the Mother Church. Because it is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church. The great Paul VI said: ‘Wanting to live with Jesus without the Church, … More →
15 Years in Prison for Bishop Who Rejected Sin of Schism
An example of those whom Pope Francis cited as today’s martyrs, although he survived his unspeakable torments, was Bishop Ioan Ploscaru (1911-1998). Chiesa Online: Bishop Ioan Ploscaru: To all of us, the Greek-Catholic priests and bishops, freedom was offered in exchange for switching to the Orthodox Church. To me personally they proposed this exchange a number of times beginning with my first arrest. But one cannot … More →
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